The Homa Files

Excerpted from NY Post, ” Obama’s search for an enemy”, March 8, 2009 

He hasn’t called anyone an “evildoer” or denounced an “axis of evil.” But make no mistake: President Obama is putting together an enemies list.

Strangely, though, those on it are not terrorists or foreign dictators. They are mostly Americans lucky enough to have succeeded through capitalism and democracy.

is criminal, as when he defended his plan for an expanded government push into health insurance as necessary “to keep the private sector honest.”

The Obama administration is on a war footing. Make that a class-war footing.

Obama’s class-war language, most of it written into prepared speeches, looks like selective anger, calculated to stoke public emotion to build support for his expansive agenda.  That agenda, which revolves around a dramatic increase in Washington power, relies on tax hikes on the same successful businesses and individuals he denounces.  First he demonizes them, then he taxes them.

And always, he makes liberal use of bogeymen. On Friday, as he stood before a class of 25 police cadets in Columbus, Ohio, hired with federal stimulus money, the President delivered a standard attack line against unnamed dissenters. “They opposed the very notion that government has a role in ending the cycle of job loss at the heart of this recession,” he said.

Actually, few if any critics advocated doing nothing. But never mind. Being President means you don’t have to let the facts get in the way of a plan to divide and conquer.

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The President dismisses the growing perception he is adding to the economic pain. Asked about the markets, Obama waved them off as like a “tracking poll in politics” that “bobs up and down day to day.”

It was a telling moment, for the markets on his watch have moved almost exclusively down. And the 55 million households that hold mutual funds are watching their savings and retirements vanish in great gobs.

Most are decidedly middle class, making them collateral damage of this war.

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Full column:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/goodwin/index.html

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Ken’s Take:

(1) Does Obama really think it’s a good idea to alienate the folks who are paying for his programs?  My sense: they’re already starting to fight back — just watch capital outflows from the US in next year or so.

(2) There is a lot of collateral damage …

(3) Wouldn’t you like to see Obama unplugged from the teleprompter for a week or so — just so we could see the real deal in operation?  As son Scott points out to me — the most powerful man in America now is a 27 year old speechwriter …

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This entry was posted on March 11, 2009 at 7:59 am and is filed under Obama - Promises Made & Kept, Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.